I just threw away a $100,000 bill. Well not exactly a real $100,000 bill, since those aren’t in circulation, but I quit my $100,000 job today. And I don’t plan on working really, for the next three or four years, or as long as my wife will support me. And it feels damn good.

I’ve decided to move to New Mexico and go back to school to study anthropology, something I’ve always been interested in. A 10-year career in high-tech PR and marketing has left me with a small nest egg in the bank, some great professional work experiences, but not as much of a life as I would have liked. All along, I haven’t really known what I want to do when I grow up, and so I just plowed ahead with my job, working my way up from unpaid intern to vice president, the whole time never really being satisfied with the career or the money. So going back to school seemed like the thing to do.

For the most part, when people (friends, clients, family, etc.) find out what I am doing, they are pretty supportive. Many say they are envious and that I’ve got "big balls" to just up and quit the real world to do something I really want to do, and how they wish they could do something like that. It secretly makes me feel like some lone trailblazer, just out there doing what I want to do, kicking ass and taking names, not taking shit from The Man anymore, while everyone else continues to suffer in their pathetic careers, marooned on the shores of a middle management Survivor Island. If this big change that I’m making is so great, why aren’t other people doing it — throwing off the shackles of a life-sucking career to follow their own dreams? Oh yeah, I’m the one with the big balls.

Not to sound like I’m whining or anything. I had to deal with some unrealistic clients, overbearing managers, and overflowing workloads, but I also worked with some great people and made the big bucks that afforded me a house and the resources to make this change, so I’m not complaining. I just see it as putting those resources to work for Me, and breaking the chain of conspicuous consumption to make the money really work, not just buy new stuff. And who knows, after a few years of school, I may decide that I really miss working in a nice office, traveling around the country and the world, making a nice paycheck regularly, and being involved in business. I’m not ruling it out, and if that happens, this will have been a great sabbatical and a chance for me to focus on what makes me happy, as opposed to being singularly focused on what do I have to do today to make my clients happy.

So two or three years from now, you may see my name on a column introducing myself back into the world of high-tech marketing.

Yeah, right. Adios.